THE HAGUE, Feb 27 (Hina) - The U.N war crimes tribunal on Thursday sentenced a former president of the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska, Biljana Plavsic, to eleven years in prison for crimes against humanity in Bosnia. She
pleaded guilty.
THE HAGUE, Feb 27 (Hina) - The U.N war crimes tribunal on Thursday
sentenced a former president of the Bosnian Serb entity of
Republika Srpska, Biljana Plavsic, to eleven years in prison for
crimes against humanity in Bosnia. She pleaded guilty. #L#
Plavsic was the entity's president from 1996 through 1998 and is the
highest ranking official to be sentenced by the tribunal.
She will remain detained in The Hague until the sentence becomes
valid, after which a country where she will serve the remainder of
the term will be determined.
No punishment set by the court chamber can completely express the
horror of what happened, nor the horrific consequences for
thousands of victims, said presiding judge Richard May.
Plavsic took part in the gravest of crimes, including a campaign of
ethnic division which resulted in the death of thousands of people
and the persecution of hundreds of thousands in conditions of
extraordinary ruthlessness, May said.
In the war in Bosnia from 1992 through 1995, more than 200,000
people were killed and almost two million fled their homes.
The judge said Plavsic had accepted and supported the goal of the
criminal endeavour of ethnic cleansing of large parts of Bosnia,
but that she was not the architect of it. She did, however,
supported its execution, being a part of authorities, with her
public addresses and by calling paramilitary troops from Serbia to
assist.
The gravity of the crime is reflected by the mass extent and degree
of persecution which involved 37 municipalities in Bosnia, the
number of people killed, deported and exiled, the inhumane
treatment of prisoners, and extent of intentional destruction of
property and religious facilities, said the judge.
He clearly stated that these crimes deserved life imprisonment had
Plavsic not pleaded guilty.
Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte requested a prison term between 15
and 20 years for Plavsic, aged 72. The defence asked that the prison
sentence not be more than eight years, since a longer sentence would
mean life imprisonment.
Last October Plavsic pleaded guilty to the charges of persecuting
the non-Serb population in Bosnia. In return, the prosecution
dropped seven other counts charging her with genocide and war
crimes.
Entering a guilty plea and being "profoundly and unconditionally
remorseful", Plavsic in the accompanying document gravely accused
former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic of being "the
initiator and an executor of the policy of ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia", and along him, her once closest associates, Radovan
Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik and Ratko Mladic.
In mid-December, during a three-day session ahead of deliberating
the sentence, former US State Secretary Madeleine Albright, Nobel
award winner Elie Wiesel, former high representative to Bosnia,
Carl Bildt, Republika Srpska premier Milorad Dodik and others
testified against her.
Stating her positive role after the signing of the Dayton peace
accords in 1995 and her cooperation with the international
community, the tribunal established that she had previously been
one of the leading Serb nationalists and a mouthpiece of the Bosnian
Serb policy.
(hina) lml